The award, which was announced Monday morning, honors a lifetime achievement in outstanding writing for motion pictures. Stoppard, 75, will receive the award at the WGAW's 2013 Writers Guild Awards West Coast ceremony Feb. 17 at the JW Marriott's Los Angeles L.A. Live.

Stoppard has written such films as "Shakespeare in Love," for which he earned his Academy Award, "Brazil," "Empire of the Sun" and "Billy Bathgate," and such classic plays as "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" and "The Real Thing."

His latest screenplay is for Joe Wright's stylized version of Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina," which is currently in theaters.